iMac will not boot. Stuck at white screen after chime.

Question

iMac will not boot. Stuck at white screen after chime.

I am starting a new thread this because it seems that other people with this problem are able to get their Macs working with some sort of keyboard combination on boot. I am not. Nothing is working. My computer is currently a 27 inch brick... Actually a lamp, since it is frozen on a really nice white screen.....

Installed Yosemite on my 27" iMac (early 2010, i7) when Yosemite came out a couple weeks ago. Everything was working fine but it wouldn't read my external drive, so I did a reboot. After the reboot, it freezes on the white screen after the chime. No keyboard combinations work to get it to do anything....also, if I hit the power button it shuts off immediately.

Nothing is working to get it moving. And yes, I am using a usb keyboard, not the Bluetooth, to try to hit any of the keyboard combinations posted in various discussions.

My AppleCare is expired, so I'm going to be very upset if I have to go pay to have Apple fix their problematic software. Any help you guys can give will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

iMac (27-inch Late 2009), OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Nov 2, 2014 8:41 AM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

685,293 points

Nov 2, 2014 1:59 PM in response to coryfromdallas

See if you can boot into the Safe Mode using your normal account. Disconnect all peripherals except those needed for the test. Shut down the computer and then power it back up after waiting 10 seconds. Immediately after hearing the startup chime, hold down the shift key and continue to hold it until the gray Apple icon and a progress bar appear and again when you log in. The boot up is significantly slower than normal. This will reset some caches, forces a directory check, and disables all startup and login items, among other things. When you reboot normally, the initial reboot may be slower than normal. If the system operates normally, there may be 3rd party applications which are causing a problem. Try deleting/disabling the third party applications after a restart by using the application un-installer. For each disable/delete, you will need to restart if you don’t do them all at once.

Safe Mode - Mavericks

Safe Mode - About

Startup - Gray, Blue or White screen at boot, w/spinner/progress bar

Startup - Gray Screen

Startup Issues - Resolve

Startup Issues - Resolve (2)

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